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This is interesting stuff to learn but this is not a secret reason why the USA beat the USSR to the Moon. The reason the USA beat the USSR to the Moon is becaus
by elmerfud 2y ago
This is interesting stuff to learn but this is not a secret reason why the USA beat the USSR to the Moon. The reason the USA beat the USSR to the Moon is because of the N-1 rocket.
This was a spending war and has proven time and time again the USA seems capable of outspending anyone. The Soviets were tasked with building a rocket on an insufficient budget managed by bureaucrats forcing them to reuse other parts to scale up to a larger rocket. On paper to someone who is uninitiated in the engineering feats required at the time is seemed like it should work. You have these smaller rocket motors just bolt on a lot more of them. Every country during that time period a lacked the technology to effectively control something like that. This is why the N-1 rocket program was such a disaster. It would take another 20 to 30 years of technology development in order to have sufficient control systems for something that complex.
While the Saturn 5 was an incredibly complex machine It was simple in comparison to the N-1 and the control systems required to operate it where much simpler. Unlike the Soviets the USA had almost an unlimited budget with less bureaucratic oversight. So they were able to take the lessons learn from smaller rockets and completely re-engineer into larger rockets. Which for the time that is what was needed. If the Soviets had viewed their rocket motors as knowledge-based building blocks to then build bigger and better rockets they likely would have beat the USA, but that is an enormous cost to bear and the USA simply outspent them.
If the USA followed that same path of trying to take 30 Redstone rocket engines and bolt them all together with the complex control systems that are needed which lacks sufficient technology in the day, similar failures would have been seen. So why the USA beat the USSR is not a secret, now days, it was simply an engineering and budgeting matter.